Does the ghost of Jimmy Carter lurk in Obama's future?

The San Francisco Examiner asks the very same question we've been asking ourselves...

Barack Obama came roaring into office just nine short months ago. He brought a head of steam and a congressional calendar that could easily last eight years passing all his ideas.

However, it appears that President Obama’s scenario of his first term in office is coming apart at the seams and there’s nobody to blame but himself. Independent voters that voted him into office are now inclined to vote him out as soon as possible.

So fast in fact that many in his administration are asking “what happened?” And the answers are many and closely aligned to the demise of Jimmy Carter’s presidency back in 1980.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows Obama disapproval rating among independent voters to be higher than his approval numbers for the first time since taking office. Astounding when it is considered he had a steady 60% approval rating until the last few months.

That encompasses approximately 43% of the American voting public. It is an incredible turn of events considering the infancy of his first term. It conjures up the “shadow” that lurked over President Carter’s FINAL year in the White House.

What apparently has happened is Americans have shied away from his big spending programs. What seemed to look good to many people on paper does not translate as well to reality.

Not unlike Carter, the president’s actions have revived a sagging and downtrodden Republican Party, the conservative right and independents all at once. Wherever Obama looks, people are beginning to ask questions and the public is awakening to the uncomfortable feeling that the country is changing too quick for their taste.

More shocking is that independent voters favor a Republican –controlled congress come the 2010 elections by a four point margin. It’s a clear message that the electorate is agreeable to replacing their Democrat Congressman with a Republican.

There has been a nine point drop in the public’s confidence in Obama’s goals and policies. These are numbers that can signal big trouble on the horizon for off year elections. The last such reversal came in 1994 when the Republicans registered huge gains in both Houses.

But the election that all Democrats would just as soon forget was in 1980. It was the beginning of the Reagan Era and an end to the left wing of the Democratic Party for decades to come.

All the ingredients for such an election are at hand minus it being a presidential election year in 2010.

Although the Democrats were quick to blame the Republicans early in Obama’s presidency for all that was wrong, the tide is turning. Just as Carter spent the first years in office blaming the Nixon Administration and President Ford, he quickly found the public dismissing that excuse.

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